This is an electronic reprint of the original article. This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail. Belk, Russell; Weijo, Henri; Kozinets, Robert V. Enchantment and perpetual desire Published in: Marketing Theory DOI: 10.1177/1470593120961461 Published: 01/03/2021 Document Version Peer reviewed version Please cite the original version: Belk, R., Weijo, H., & Kozinets, R. V. (2021). Enchantment and perpetual desire: Theorizing disenchanted enchantment and technology adoption. Marketing Theory, 21(1), 25-52. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593120961461 This material is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorised user. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Final white paper version accepted for publication in Marketing Theory. Enchantment and Perpetual Desire: Theorizing Disenchanted Enchantment and Technology Adoption RUSSELL W. BELK HENRI A. WEIJO ROBERT V. KOZINETS ABSTRACT Dominant perspectives on technology adoption and consumption tend to be cognitive, instrumental, and individualistic. We offer a desire-centered, future oriented and culturally grounded alternative model called the Disenchanted Enchantment Model (DEM). Drawing on historical evidence and revised interpretations of theories of enchantment and disenchantment by Weber and Saler, we show that desire is at the heart of technology consumption’s enchantments, and how its fulfilment is temporary, sceptical, and ironic. We provide an important cultural counterbalance to models such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which replace wonder with reason. Instead we theorize the process that drives contemporary technology adoption as centering on desirous senses of wonderment and anticipation. We offer current and recent examples of the DEM process and discuss the implications this model holds for a new understanding of technology, consumption, desire, and broader consumer culture. Keywords: Diffusion of innovations, disenchantment, enchantment, wonder, scepticism, technology adoption, consumer desire. What follows could be read as a celebration of models of automobiles, fashions, and movie technology, unbridled technophilia, technological franchises, or daily, weekly, and monthly solutionism, and even technological determinism. newspapers, magazines, and television series. Today, Although the consumers of whom we speak might we have faster anticipatory cycles of revelation well be accused of such utopianism, we well realize through blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, social the dangers of such a stance. Nevertheless, what we media, and streaming music, television, and films. seek to theorize is how we succumb to these Our project began with the observation that in the seductive sources of hope. Much of the scholarship sphere of new technologies, anticipatory about technology is still laden with assumptions of consumption has gone into overdrive as consumers consumer rationality and calculation. However, by have become eager participants in the perpetual tracing a historical and cultural path, this article will marketplace drama that seeks to anoint something as reveal the mix of desires—for pleasure, the future, the next new thing. We present a cyclical model of spectacle, and liberation—at the heart of technology adoption and call it the Disenchanted technology’s perpetual charm to humanity. As Enchantment Model (DEM). It is a considerably consumers, we have long consumed serial goods and enhanced, more imaginative, more forward-looking, epistemic objects whose properties we collectively and more emotion-driven alternative to functional observe, explore, and anticipate (Knorr Cetina 1997; Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations and Zwick and Dholakia 2006a, 2006b). Think of annual Technology Acceptance Models that still dominate BELK, WEIJO & KOZINETS 1 marketing theorization on technology adoption (e.g., psychological makeup and willingness to appropriate Bahlol, et al., 2018; Fathema, Shannon, and Ross new technologies: innovators, early adopters, early 2015; Mazzarol and Reboud 2019). majority, late majority, and laggards. Not included We begin by reviewing prior literature on but implicit in his model are non-adopters. Rogers’ technology adoption processes and elaborating on model held the behavioral and attitudinal traits of why they do not fully explain the cultural climate these groups to be relatively consistent; eager underlying the current era of technology innovators in car shopping should not be hesitant consumption. We then revisit the Weberian laggards when buying televisions. Younger disenchantment thesis and establish a historical link consumers are often seen as ahead of the curve, as between technology and enchantment. We explain evinced by more recent discussions relating to so- how disenchanted enchantment (Saler 2012) has called digital natives (Prensky 2008). Rogers’ model become central to contemporary consumer culture still enjoys widespread popularity and has had a great and especially the consumption of novel influence on, for example, von Hippel’s (1986) lead technologies. Disenchanted enchantment provides a user theories that follow related patterns of context for technology consumption’s historical and psychological profiling. ideological present (Mick and Fournier 1998; Rogers also suggested that factors such as Kozinets 2008) by introducing the dubious-but- observability, complexity, and trialability affected the willing consumer driven by a desire to desire (Belk et rate at which innovations diffuse. His work inspired al. 2003). This jaded and sceptical consumer further research that proposed more refined answers nevertheless suspends disbelief and continuously to questions of why some technologies are more plays along with a procession of one technological readily adopted than others. Particularly in the field magic show after another (During 2002; Saler 2012). of information sciences, the Technology Acceptance The next section presents our Disenchanted Model (TAM) became highly influential and soon Enchantment Model that unfolds through four proliferated into other fields, including marketing and cyclically repetitive stages: 1) the paradox of the consumer research (Davis 1989; Mahajan, Muller, impossible realized, 2) growing promise of and Bass 1990). Early TAM research identified two gratification, 3) ludic satiation, and 4) normalization functional factors that explain both intended and and rising sense of loss—repeat ad infinitum. actual technology adoption: the perceived usefulness Throughout our development of these four stages, we and ease of use of the technology (Davis 1989). track the process’s connections to desire, Follow-up research further revised and refined the prognostication, the spectacle, Romantic futures, model. For example, the longer technologies were on technological utopianism, and their intertwining the market, the more useful and easier to use they liberatory promise. Next, the paper provides seemed to become (Venkatesh and Morris 2000). historical and recent examples to illuminate these Social norms and peers were also identified as key interconnections. We conclude by discussing our moderators in technology acceptance (Thompson, theoretical contributions, differentiating it from Higgins, and Cowell 1991; Venkatesh et al. 2003). earlier useful but incomplete models of desire and TAM pioneers Venkatesh and colleagues (2003) contemporary imaginative hedonism, and providing eventually proposed a new model called a Unified directions for future research. Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) that also incorporated social influences, PROCESS THEORIES OF hedonic orientation, gender, age, and voluntariness of TECHNOLOGY CONSUMPTION use as key new variables (see also Venkatesh, Thong, Basing his work on a study of Iowa farmers’ hybrid and Xu 2012). corn adoption, Everett Rogers (1962) provided an Yet, even with revisions, these models are facing early and influential theorization of the technology growing criticism. Bagozzi (2007), a one-time TAM adoption process via his diffusion of innovations scholar himself, sees the incremental revisions in model. He theorized that the population could be TAM/UTAUT research as relatively obvious and he divided into distinct groups based on their underlined these models’ lack of linkages to important social, cultural, and emotional factors. The BELK, WEIJO & KOZINETS 2 shortcomings of these utilitarian and functionalist ENCHANTMENT AND TECHNOLOGY perspectives have become all the more evident in an Revisiting the Weberian Thesis of Disenchantment era of personal, ludic, and hyped technologies Østergaard, Fitchett, Jantzen (2013) provide a (Hedman and Gimpel 2010; Antón, Camarero, and general overview of enchantment theorization within Rodríguez 2013). consumer research, drawing a chronological arc from Mick and Fournier (1998) provided a cultural twist Max Weber to Colin Campbell to George Ritzer. to technology adoption theories by illustrating how Weber’s (1964) famous die Entzauberung der Welt is new technologies elicit paradoxical reactions from an obligatory point of passage in theoretical consumers that draw on Western technology myths. discussions